Relationships Grown Up Style

Flatbush called me the other day. It seems that everyone is settling down these days, and Flat is trying to give it a whirl as well. I could say it’s growing up, but it is getting cold outside, and the holidays are right around the corner.


“Man, JD,” Flat drawled tiredly, “she wants to go to counseling. What the hell?”


I’m all in favor of counseling. I have been in therapy and recognize its benefits. As ½ of a couple, however, I have grown to understand why men are reluctant to engage in relationship therapy. Too often, men find themselves opening up and facing either a wife who will use against them what they said in therapy, or worse, their wives will only share their husband’s wrong. For example, a wife who is having an affair will keep mum about that issue in a session while fully exploiting the pain her husband’s drinking is causing her.


Him: I have trust issues. I know she is seeing Byron. I know that her getting with me was about her needing attention, and she likes the pursuit and being caught, and then likes to move on. She married my but she is seeing someone else, because I know her. Oh, yeah, I also know because Byron keeps calling the house and I overheard her telling him, “My husband wants me to wear my black underwear today, so I have to get them from your house.”


Her: Why does he have to have a six pack every night? It’s tearing us apart. I mean, I come home and he’s half in the bag.


Men have come to realize that few relationship counselors ask, “Is he ripped because you are coming home in different clothes than you left in that morning, singing “Byyyyyyron” like other women sing “Caaaaaalgon”? They focus on, “Byron, you do realize substance abuse destroys many relationships?”


If poor Byron counters that infidelity might cause its share of breakups as well, he is quietly derided for not owning his issues.


As I have matured, I have found that much of what I thought was good logic in relationships just isn’t because we aren’t attracted to people based on maturity levels. There are a lot of things that initially attract us to the opposite sex, but maturity isn’t one of them. That’s probably wise. One tends to gain maturity at the expense of other physical attributes. Over the last fifteen years I have traded maturity for eyesight, a six pack, black hair, and finally hair at all. I have a bunch of maturity in my blind, bald overweight soon to approach middle aged years. Naturally, when I was in the market, I found myself with women who had the maturity of 18 year olds, but the trade off was they had the looks bodies of the same. Seldom did those relationships work.


Men have reached a point where by and large, they can admit their issues. Their frustration is that their women don’t, and nobody wants to be the bad guy all of the time. Contrary to popular belief, the male species needs more from the opposite sex than just sexual service and home amenities. Many are tiring of relationships not out of a failure to commit, but out of frustration. When someone points a high powered lens at you, it’s uncomfortable. When ladies have written books and jumped on talk shows exposing Black men’s foibles and failures, it hurt. Now that guys are starting to closely examine women the same way they have been scrutinized for years, it’s making folk uncomfortable. Suddenly, we need to run to outside referees who historically have not sided with the male species.


In Flat’s situation, I could offer no advice save a weak, “See if your health plan covers it. If not, maybe you got an out.”


“I mean, man, I like her and all, but she has no ambition, she has no drive, I feel she is only stepping up her game because she is with me. I kinda wanted someone who would give it her all just because that’s what she’s on.”


“I don’t think it’s a bad thing someone tries to put their best foot forward because of their environment, Flat. Some of the greatest successes in the world have come about because someone decided to better themselves to better their situation. There is great power in taking someone, or something, seriously.”


The line went quiet.


“No one is perfect, man, and no relationship is based on equals. “She’s probably would have stepped her game up long ago if she knew the men she loved loved her in return. It’s obvious ya’ll feel strongly for each other, have each other’s back, are each other’s best friend.”


“I don’t want a woman who’d step her game up for me. I’d want her to want something regardless. I’d be leading her. I want someone self led.”


“You dumb, Flat. EVERY relationship has an adult and a child. There are women out here who love their men but realize dude couldn’t survive on his own without them. There are strong men out here with women children who have to look past some of the childish things at play when they realize how much she needs them. No relationship is 50/50. In fact, I told one of my strong female friends who kept saying she couldn’t meet an even stronger man that she didn’t need one. Because if she ran across a man stronger than her, he would crush her spirit, and that would be a waste.”

“Yeah, cuz a strong man…”


“No, because she wants someone stronger than her. And in any situation, when you buck someone stronger than you, they will win. Male or female. That’s how strength works. Relationships can’t be built on that.”


“J…she’s been around. Even professionally. You know that.”


“Flat…she’s a young woman who really feels she has nothing to offer but what’s between her legs, and she has made the same mistake over and over offering that to guys because she felt she had nothing else. You know what’s funny? There are women who like sex. They ain’t doing just ANYBODY, cuz they ain’t trying to be disappointed. Then there are women who do it a lot because honestly, they don’t know nothing else. They get with the right person, if he can get beyond their need for attention and their way of playing that out through their organs…man. They got the potential to be something else. You gotta get over yesterday and what other people think, though, to get that gold.

You ever see how some women get mad? They were with Tyrone, he dogged them, he was into dirt, etc. They run into him 10 years later, he’s got this beautiful Black wife, kids, he’s superdad. And they are mad. SOMEONE saw what he had inside and made him…


“I guess the same goes with women. It bothers with you when you see that easy girl you knew before, ALL they guys had her, and she is with some dude who has made her a STAR. She is now someone you gotta look at and admit, ‘She WAS easy, but that chick be brought OUT of her ain’t no slut…In fact, that chick we used to mess with resembles this one in name and body only. We couldn’t touch the woman she is now.’” Dude, somebody else’s tramp is really a phenomenal woman inside, and be real: doesn’t it reflect on you as a man when you had her and all you could get was sex, but he got her to give up the whole package, and be a woman and a half? She’d just sleep you. She lives for him. That says more about the fool that dogged her and speaks volumes about the man that loves her.”


Flat got real quiet.


“Damn,” he said, “You right.”


I stayed quiet.


“What I wonder, though, J, is if she would have had anyone vouch for me the way you vouched for her? Because if the tables were turned, I’d just be wrong, and as a result of my wrongness, she would use that to justify whatever dirt she wanted to do.”


“One thing at a time, man. But you’re right. The pendulum is swinging the other way. This aint that however. You either want to be here or not. If you do, then you gotta roll with it, maybe do this counseling, and hopefully through honesty love and patience, it’ll all work out. If not, you know you put your best foot forward. That may have to be enough.”